CP Sportsman

Veteran racer Joe Hessling is returning to Summit Motorsports Park in Norwalk, Ohio, this weekend looking for more glory.

Hessling, who has reached the winner's circle in a variety of classes at Summit Motorsports Park in the past, will be piloting a dragster owned by Rob Moser in the Top Dragster Class at the 10th annual Cavalcade of Stars presented by Budweiser.

"My dragster has done really well with the APD (Advanced Product Design) and ProCharger combination and when people have noticed that and have asked to buy the combination, which is a showcase of sorts for APD and ProCharger, we've sold it, and rebuilt and sometimes that leaves me without an engine for a while," Hessling said in a press release. "Luckily for me, Rob (Moser) had another commitment for this weekend and offered to let me see what I could do with his dragster, which I've tested one time, but I've never raced it."

For a long time, David Schmidt wasn't flying down the track. Instead, he had his head in the clouds.The defending International Hot Rod Association Quick Rod champion didn't race for nearly two decades. Instead, the Flintstone, Ga., driver took up a new hobby of hang gliding.

All it took was one trip back to the drag strip and Schmidt was back behind the wheel.

"I raced from 1969-'73 and then I got out of it," Schmidt said recently at an IHRA Summit Sportsman National Championship event in Darlington, S.C. "I flew hang gliders for 13 years, but about 1992, I decided I wanted to go watch drag racing again. I was just going to watch and I ended up buying a racecar."

NHRA announced a change to the structure in which racers earn points toward a berth in the popular JEGS Allstar program. Beginning with the 2018 JEGS Allstar event, racers will now count their best five in-division events toward their JEGS Allstar point’s total.

Previously a racer would count all in-division events toward their points total but by moving to a racer’s best five events, it will open the program up to more JEGS Allstar hopefuls. The point’s structure will continue to be a 12-month point’s battle in that events in the second part of 2017, along with events at the beginning of 2018 will count towards a racers 2018 points total.

JEGS NHRA SPORTSnationals returns to Beech Bend Raceway Park in Bowling Green, Ky., for the second consecutive year on Memorial Day weekend, for three days of intense racing action. The event is set to take place May 26-28 and will once again feature the best sportsman racers from across the country and will have over $108,000 in cash purse and special bonus races plus product contingency awards.

The racing action begins on Friday at 8 a.m. as the racers take to the track for qualifying runs. Super Stock, Stock, Super Gas, Super Street, and Super Comp along with Top Dragster, Top Sportsman and Comp Eliminator will take to the track during the day.

The consensus around the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series is the Laris Family has the market nearly cornered on the fine art of storytelling, which often leads to uncontrollable laughter. Truth be known, there are those who will say they are even better insurance agents.

The Laris Family holds four generations of insurance experience, and this year they've combined the two markets they know best - drag racing and insurance.

Laris Insurance is working on four generations in the business of insurance, established in 1939 Laris Insurance is widely known in the commercial oil field business.

Jason Rupert, Brian Hyerstay, and Jacob Wood all took their pictures in the winner circle of the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series, Northwest division NAPA Auto Parts Ignitor Championship presented by Peterson Chevrolet this past weekend at Firebird Raceway. Rupert took the win in Nostalgia Funny Car, Hyerstay won in Comp Eliminator and Wood won in Sportsman Motorcycle class.

The quickest Nostalgia Funny Care race in Firebird History took place in the final round. Rupert, out of Anaheim Hills, Calif., faced off with Dan Horan, Sylmar, Calif., in a ’69 Camaro battle. Horan made a strong pass down the lane but he was no match for Rupert. Rupert had the starting line advantage and saved his best pass for his last making it a decisive win in his favor with a winning lap of 5.602 seconds, 256.80 mph. Horan had a runner up pass of 5.765 seconds, 247.52 mph.

The 37th annual NHRA Southern Nationals took place this past weekend at Atlanta Dragway. And despite the inclement weather, all competition was completed. David Rampy, Piedmont, Ala., and Jimmy Hidalgo Jr. Donaldsonville, La., led the winner’s circle for the Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series.

First up for Day “Last” at the K&N Spring Fling presented by Optima Batteries was the Spring Fling Reaction Time Challenge.

Twenty randomly selected racers were invited to take one shot at the ‘tree. A .00X reaction time earned the driver a $100 bill while a perfect .000 gets $1,000. Six drivers received hundred, Matt Schapiro, Bug McCarty, Vince Shrawder, Matt Brehm, Antoine Jett, and Jeremy Brewer. Just when it looked no one was going to earn the grand, Tim Thomas pulled up to be the last of the 20. Lo and behold, triple zeros showed up on the board and Thomas was now $1,000 richer and given one more shot to duplicate the effort which would have earned him $10,000 if he did it again. A red -.002 was close but not close enough, however he still walked away a happy man.

They say that in life, a little rain must fall, however, while it might have sprinkled yesterday, the “rain” surely didn’t fall on Jeff Dobbins in his win from Wiseco Thursday’s $20,000 race. All that changes today at the gorgeous Galot Motorsports Park.

While the rain fell pretty heavy overnight and delayed the start of the day, it might have only delayed the inevitable, which was Strange Engineering Friday where the ante is upped and someone will walk away with a $50,000 check tonight.

With round six in the books, the survivors were Tommy Plott with both his dragster and door car, Richard Alford Jr., 18-year old Angela Gantkowski, Terry “Turtle” Brannon, Wednesday’s winner Shane Carr and receiving the last bye run of the race will be Tommy Cable in his door car.